Two Colorado State University researchers, who have for 20 years been forecasting in December what the next hurricane season would be like in June, July, August, etc., have apparently called it quits after having been wrong for 20 years.

So says The Ottawa Citizen anyway.

Some of my colleagues are rejoicing because the news means I'll have one less thing to carp and grumble about during Decembers to come.

We got off the December doom train sometime before 2007, according to this editorial I wrote back then. I had many problems with the winter hurricane forecast. One of which was that it came out in December, for goodness sake, a month or so after having just put a hurricane season to rest. Who wants to think about the next one that soon?

Another was that it was useless, or as the university researchers put it had "not shown real-time forecast skill," which is grant application jargon for useless.

We had not reported the December forecast for years. But everybody else did, which meant people would call asking why we hadn't. Some had grand conspiracy theories about how we were suppressing information about the inevitably "active" or "very active" hurricane season that was, what, just six short months away. It was loads of holiday fun.

I’m in a battle of wits with a telemarketing computer.

The computer, more or less randomly, calls my cell and office phones with this message: “This is the second notice that the factory warranty on your car or truck is about to expire.”

Actually, it’s about the 600th notice. But who’s counting? And no, the factory warranty on my car or truck is not about to expire.

Under the rules of engagement I’ve created for this game, if I answer the call, the computer wins. If I don’t, I do. I admit the computer wins from time to time. It’s crafty, changes numbers. I get paid to answer the phone, so I can’t set the squelch too high.

When I do answer the calls, I put the computer on hold and let it gabber into the Musak generated by a computer here. It takes the sting out of being duped by a brainless box, for some reason.

All of this raises a fundamental question: Can telemarketing, one of man’s most annoying and insidious inventions, really be effective?

It’s counter-intuitive. But surely it works or companies wouldn’t do it. Would they?

Or could it be that all the world’s truly great salesmen are selling telemarketing services to people who mistakenly think telemarketers can sell their products?

I know two things for sure: I’ve never bought anything from a telemarketer; I never will.

The company that made my car or truck offers extended warranties. A salesman told me about them the day I drove it off the lot.

The dealer also has a note about them taped to the cashier’s window in the service department. I see it when I’m paying for oil changes and lube jobs.

Every time the computer calls, I think of that piece of paper and how it has never interrupted my lunch or dinner, never butted into a conversation with my wife, never woke me up too early on a Sunday.

When the factory warranty on my car or truck really is about to expire, I know where I’ll go.